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Comment by ww520 | Hacker News Reader

I read the book by Tsutomu Shimomura, who caught Mitnick's hacking and tracked him down. It's a fascinating read. He was able to locate Mitnick in physical world based on his online activities and his cellular phone usage. In those early days, few people understood the cyber landscape and cellular technologies to exploit them.

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I read a mess of books about Mitnick's escapades including Hafer's and Shimomura's, and definitely came away with the impression that while Mitnick was a criminal, Shimomura was a bit of an asshole.

Yes but AFAIUI Mitnick was upset Shimomura had the full weight of the police on his side, right? He used techniques that shouldn't have been available to him

Interesting fact about Shimomura, he was a student of Feynman's

... All's fair in love and war?

Google says As Far As I Understand It.

Seems a distinction without a difference from the traditional AFAIK As Far As I Know.

Sorry, I didn't quote the relavent section. My reply was not an attempt at translating the acronym, but replying to the context of being mad at using 'unfair tactics'

For what it's worth I'm not necessarily 'mad'. I was just explaining the context of the situation because it's interesting

I think he didn't know cellular well enough and thought a wireless phone was unlocatable because it was mobile and not tied down to a landline. As a physicist, Shimomura would have known all about radio and signal. He just used old WW2 tech of radio triangulation to find the location of the cell phone radio transmitter. It didn't help that cell phones were rare back then and the signal of his cell transmitter frequency was standing out like a sore thumb.

Regarding the full weight of the police, Shimomura did have an easier time to convince the ISP and phone companies to give him access to the logs. He was able to ask the cellular company to locate the cell tower where Mitnick's cell phone connected and traced him to the general area. If Mitnick had been careful, he could have hacked into the ISP/phone companies and erased all his access logs.

> He used techniques that shouldn't have been available to him

Why not? Sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know.

>used techniques that shouldn't have been available to him

odd for a hacker to take that attitude ...

to add to this:

I highly recommend this Youtube video....its 4 hours long but it is pretty amazing!

Takedown Evidence: Kevin Mitnick's "sessions" (Complete Transcripts) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5EGMYsr6uY

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